How could a review into the evils of commission paid to those who sell life insurance be a bad thing? Isn’t most of it a rip-off anyway? Well, I guess you have to hope that it is – it will either be a waste of money or the best thing you ever did, and you hope it will be the former. The stats are that only 35% of the population have any form of live cover, about a third of those who do get it via their employer and that in 2023 the number of policies taken out fell to it’s lowest ever level. There were once hordes (100,000 or more) of men from the Pru, Allied Dunbar et al knocking on doors (often literally), asking awkward questions (‘back up the hearse and let them smell the flowers’ was the sales-training mantra) and persuading the often-unwilling to sign on the dotted. Those that still do, and the comparison websites which provide the diy option, will be still less inclined if there if the financial incentives are reduced. And many who need it (which is most of us at some time) will end up without life insurance.
“FCA: ‘We’re not against small firms’”
We’ve always been a small firm, even when we thought we were big, as the official classification is ‘ten advisers or less’. There is a, perhaps justifiable perception that our regulator would prefer to regulate far fewer big firms, rather than the many thousands of smaller adviser companies which are still in the vast majority, with over 88% of the 4,600 odd directly-authorised financial advisers comprising less than 5 advisers.
